Anyone with BCBS & Dr. Blackstone...

Hi I have BCBS of Arizona and in the process of getting approval to have surgery with Dr. Blackstone. Currently BCBS of AZ requires that you do a 6mth physician supervised diet; I am currently in my 5th month & my PCP is totally supporting my decision for the surgery, he is so nice. I have two questions: 1st Does it mean that you will automatically get approval through your insurance once you complete your 6 months and 2nd question: How long does it normally take from once your insurance gets approved, to you actually having the surgery. I've already had a consultation, met with the nutritionist, and taken my psych test and talke with the psychatrist. I am getting so eager and excited and the waiting part of it seems to get the best of you. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Take Care, Annie

My husband and I are lap band people with Dr. B. My husband has had his surgery, Nov 6th, mine won't be until Jan due to some more tests they want to run. We were approved in July and told we were about 4 months out from the actual surgery. THey didn't really start all the medical tests until September and into October. The tests required will depend on what Dr. B wants to order, so what we had may not apply to you. Noreen will probably be the one that schedules you next. There are several more phases you go through, then your final lab work is done in the last 30 days and your consult with Dr. B will be two weeks before surgery. My advice from personal experience, once you find out what testing they want done, try and get your appointments sooner rather than later. Things can come up that require other exams, like a sleep study if for some reason they think you may have sleep apnea, or the cardiac people (a two day test by iteself) may require you to see a pulmonary specialist for clearance. It's quite a process, that also includes pre-op educational classes so you know what to expect, you'll leave with a binder you can refer to as you go along and also post op. They are very careful at SBC and you'll love Dr. Blackstone. We had different insurance and didn't have to go through a medically supervised period so our approval came very fast. Once our primary care doctor wrote the letter and sent it to Dr. Blackstone, next thing we knew we were approved and Noreen was our first contact who told us by email that we were approved and gave us our surgery date. Good Luck, it will happen before you know it. Carole M

Hi Annie, I have BCBS of NY... they requested 6 months of weight loss documentation also after SBC went to submit my approval. Once I got that to SBC, Freda called BCBS for authorization. Once SBC receives authorization (majority of the time, the same day) they will let you know by phone or email. Then once you know you can call Noreen and get yourself scheduled. I was approved on August 14th, I got my surgery date on August 15th for October 30th. Since you have all the appointments with the nutrionist, pysch, etc.. you wont have to do anything else. Unless they gave you more tests to do on your own. Then once your scheduled, you will attend the pre-op class and doctors appointment and will need to get blood work done 30 days before surgery. Nicole